SPARK Talks

SPARK Talks are designed to “inspire ideas in 18 minutes or less”, where individual personalities will present on specific topics using slides or background settings applying the celebrated “TED” style format.

SPARK Talks: Food Systems

Wednesday, March 26 / 4:30pm – 5:30pm / Room 11

Urban Agriculture 2.0: The Vertical Farm Solution With a planet on course to a population of 9.6 billion by 2050, our ability to grow food sustainably and at a large-scale will be integral to our global prosperity. Hear from Caleb Harper in this thought-provoking SPARK Talk about how MIT CityFARM is creating the world’s first working vertical hydroponic and aeroponic farm, reinventing the future of urban agriculture through cutting-edge engineering, big data, and network connectivity.

Leveraging the Power of Community to Solve Global Food Issues Access to affordable and healthy food is a global issue and the social problems surrounding food security have never been greater. In his SPARK Talk, Mark Brand will share his innovative strategies that are driving solutions to these challenges. From strategic partnerships, to zero waste-policies and community integration, hear how Mark’s food-based business models are impacting the relationship between urban living and food security.

SPARK Talks: Sustainable Design

Thursday, March 27 / 2:45pm – 3:45pm / Room 11

Biomimicry: Emulating Nature’s Best Design Strategies Have you ever wondered how you might design differently if you could bring 3.8 billion years of experience to your design table? Life’s genius offers a plethora of sustainable solutions for those willing to ask the right questions. In this inspired SPARK Talk, Dr. Baumeister will explore the emerging practice of biomimicry – the conscious emulation of nature’s best design strategies and principles, each with the potential to completely transform how we build our world, run our businesses, and thrive as a species on this planet.

Cradle-to-Cradle and Technomimicry With the “cradle-to-cradle” design concept, as in nature, there is no such thing as waste and no limitations. Dr. Braungart will show how this world-renowned sustainable design concept can be applied as an engine for innovation in order to produce completely new and different products. His SPARK Talk will also give special focus to social and cultural aspects of design, including “technomimicry”, a concept which goes far beyond sustainability in order to address complex issues and challenges across all industries and sectors.

Sustainable Design and Co-innovation: Compelling business solutions to society’s biggest challenges
On this journey to sustainability, we are all designers – architects of change, dreamers who imagine a future that is abundant and alive, a part of nature and not apart from it. Nadine will bring to life some of the key questions and strategies driving Interface’s next ascent up “Mount Sustainability”, scaling sustainable solutions toward a vision of restorative enterprise, including unlikely partnerships with “unusual suspects” through the Net-Works global partnership. This is a design challenge like no other. It’s based on principles of co-innovation, and it means going beyond product innovation – transforming supply chain and redesigning systems. This story is centered on a new set of questions about what it might mean in practice to be a restorative business and the kinds of conditions required to feed the journey.

SPARK Talks: Green Economy & Sustainability

Friday, March 28 / 10:15am – 11:15am / Room 11

Making It Real: Discovering Future Ready Solutions for Today’s Resource Constrained Environment Throughout Yasmin Glanville’s three decades of leading and advising global and local organizations, she has witnessed the acceleration of large scale and often extreme changes impacting the future sustainability of business and society. With a focus on “what can be done to achieve greater competitive value in a resource constrained environment”, this SPARK Talk will explore relevant strategies for discovering, developing, and jumpstarting trigger ready solution ideas, projects, and opportunities that can be put into practice from the get-go.

Plastic: The Material that Binds the PlanetPlastic is an amazing material. Although it’s created to be permanent, it continues to be used in high percentages for disposable products. How can we continue to benefit from the use of plastic without creating a negative environmental “footprint”, which we know is getting larger? In this inspiring SPARK Talk by Doug Woodring, learn about the mindset change of turning waste into a resource, and how this thinking can result in a wide range of improvements for our communities and waters that surround them.

Trade and the Global Green Economy Dr. Wen’s insightful SPARK talk will introduce the recent development on the issues of green economy and World Trade Organization (WTO) environmental disputes, including the relationships between trade and environment, green new deals, and the theoretical reasonings, with a special focus on the economic principles behind the trade of green goods and consumer products.